We want to hear your thoughts on ground mount solar in Oxfordshire We are facing a climate emergency, which demands that we transition to zero carbon as soon as possible. Energy plays a huge part in this. How we achieve this is still under debate – but it’s clear that we must: reduce energy demand…

In January 2019 the Oxford City Council officially declared a climate emergency in Oxford. In April they announced that Oxford would hold the UK’s first citizens assembly, to discuss how we should address the climate crisis within Oxford. This citizens assembly was held over two weekends at the Said Business School, the first in September 2019…

As 2019 comes to a close, we wanted to reflect on our Hub highlights of the year – it’s been a big one! Community Energy Fund 2019 We re-opened our Community Energy Fund for 2019, welcoming over 200 new investors and raising a huge £734,900, which is now already supporting community energy – increasing our portfolio…

In February 2019 we announced that Low Carbon Hub were part of a consortium (alongside RetrofitWorksand National Energy Foundation) which had won a bid with the Department for Business, Energy, and Industry Strategy (BEIS) to develop a home retrofit scheme in Oxfordshire. This bid became Cosy Homes Oxfordshire –a home retrofit service aiming to help…

Do you have a background in the building industry? If so, would you like to train and become a Retrofit Coordinator? Cosy Homes Oxfordshire is a partnership project being delivered by Low Carbon Hub, RetrofitWorks and the National Energy Foundation to help homeowners improve the energy efficiency of their homes. It’s a scheme which is new…

Over the past eight years, the Low Carbon Hub has more than trebled in size. At its smallest, our team consisted of 3 members of staff and we have grown to our current number of 16! We have also increased the number of our investor members to over 1000, a number which we hope will…

Home energy consumption accounts for around 30% of total energy used in the UK, and around 20% of our total carbon emissions. According to Ofgem, the average UK home with a medium energy consumption uses 12,000 kWh of gas per year and 3,100 kWh of electricity per year. That represents total carbon emissions of 3,067kg…

Over the past eight years, the Low Carbon Hub has partnered with 29 schools to install 5,647 solar PV panels. Our Solar Schools service offers schools a comprehensive solar installation service to power your schools with community-owned, discounted green electricity. Schools signing up for a free solar rooftop survey can apply for a grant to…

In November 2019 we installed an extension to our existing solar project on the roof of UTC Aerospace Systems CTG in Banbury, Oxfordshire. The background This solar roof array was already our largest rooftop solar install, and thought to be the UK’s largest community-owned rooftop solar array. When first installed, there were 2590 solar pv…

On 17 October a group of Oxford University master’s students visited Sandford Hydro as part of their Energy Systems course. The group received a tour from Harry Orchard, our Operations and Maintenance Assistant, and were shown the inner workings of the electric hydro plant. They went inside the control room where it’s possible to see the overview…

We would like to say a massive thank you to all who came to the ‘Inspired by Communities’ event prior to the Low Carbon Hub Joint AGM on 7 October and who helped to make it such a genuinely inspiring experience. The room at the Town Hall was full with many of our CIC shareholder…

Cosy Homes Oxfordshire, a home retrofit service, has recently launched and we are seeking to register new building contractors (builders, architects, energy assessors, surveyors, and more) and Retrofit Coordinators to undertake energy efficiency improvement work across Oxfordshire. If you work within the construction industry or building trades, or know someone who does, then encourage them…

For the third year in a row, we are thrilled to report that most people who responded to our annual ‘How are we doing? survey find us to be committed to the creation of a low carbon, locally-owned renewable energy system and trust in our expertise.  Every year we ask our members, supporters, community groups,…

At a meeting of cabinet on 29 May 2019, Oxford City Council agreed to renew their offer of a revolving loan facility of £2.3m to Low Carbon Hub to support the build of more community energy projects in Oxfordshire. The funds will enable the Low Carbon Hub to build more renewable energy projects across the…

We are really excited to announce the launch of Project LEO or ‘Local Energy Oxfordshire’ – a £40m three-year collaborative project that will change the energy system as we know it. The project has been awarded £13.8m from the UK Government Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, managed by Innovate UK, and will be supported by £26m…

We were thrilled to hear that three communities in Oxfordshire offered to combine the funding raised through the carrier bag charge in their local Co-ops and donate it to our Community Benefit Fund.  Many thanks to communities involved in Banbury, Central Oxford and Kidlington & North West Oxfordshire for this donation of just over £9,000.  The…

We are thrilled to announce that the 2019 round of our Community Energy Fund raised £726,650 in investment to support community energy in Oxfordshire. We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who chose to invest in us and put their money to work tackling climate change. In addition to investment raised through…

We are really pleased to announce we have led a winning consortium bid with the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy (BEIS) to lay the foundations for developing a home retrofit scheme in Oxfordshire.  Delivering the project will be the Low Carbon Hub, the National Energy Foundation which is already active in the county providing the…

This time of year is a great opportunity to reflect and so we’ve picked out a few highlights of what we got up to this past year, all possible thanks to the help and support of our investor and community members and partners.  We launched an exciting new opportunity to support community energy through the Community…

The Low Carbon Hub is to be awarded a European Solar Prize 2018 at an award ceremony in Bonn on 17 November 2018.  Every year EUROSOLAR awards the European Solar Prize to role models and pioneers in the field of renewable energy and brings a wide variety of energy transition actors from all parts of…

We’re really pleased to welcome our 28th solar school to the Low Carbon Hub. Longfields Primary and Nursery School in Bicester now have a fully installed array of solar panels that will provide around a third of the school’s energy needs.  Longfields is the latest to join a growing number of schools across Oxfordshire to…

Low Carbon Hub has joined forces with an expert consortium of partners in a new project called The Next Generation, a fund to develop new decentralised, decarbonised, and democratised energy business models.  The Next Generation fund will provide grants of up to £100,000 to ten community energy groups to work on new business models for…

The new generation season for Sandford Hydro is restarting again with the (slow) return of the rains! Clean electricity is now being generated by the hydro on the weir at Sandford, although not yet at full power. It is the large winter output of the hydro that brilliantly complements solar panels, which this summer experienced record…

There are lots of reasons to invest in the Low Carbon Hub. When we ask our investors, they talk about wanting to do their bit to tackle climate change, support local projects and make their money do a social good.  Check out our infographic below where we’ve picked out just ten reasons to invest in…

As you’ve probably noticed, it has been fairly sunny in Oxfordshire recently!  This means that at the moment some of our solar schools who are getting most of their electricity from their solar panels. They are not only using renewable energy and cutting CO2 emissions, but they are also saving money!  Percentage of electricity currently coming from…

The results are in for our 2018 ‘How are we doing?’ survey and they show that people continue to trust in our expertise around local, renewable energy and low carbon. Our respondents also continue to perceive us to be committed to the creation of a low carbon, locally owned renewable energy system. We’re really pleased…

Following a recent election, the community group members of Low Carbon Hub’s CIC have elected a new Community Director to the Board of Directors: Nina Alphey.  Nina is a long-term member of Westmill Solar Co-operative Ltd and has served on its Board since 2016. She was also an active member of low carbon community group…

Large grants We are offering two grants of up to £5,000 for this year’s large grants fund, available to our community group members. These grants are part of the ‘community benefit’ we return to communities.  The year’s theme is energy efficiency. We are interested in applications relating to residential, commercial and public buildings; your project…

2017 has been a busy year with some key milestones and achievements for the Low Carbon Hub, including the completion of the Sandford Hydro project, receiving £1.2m in European Regional Development Funding and producing our first ever Social Impact Report. And there were lots of other exciting bits of news in between.  Take a look…

As well as providing help and advice, Low Carbon Hub also offers financial support to  our community shareholder groups wanting to carry out carbon-cutting activity in their community. Here is a case study of what one group did with a small grant we awarded them. Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust (WeSET) was one of the last community groups to successfully…

This video, courtesy of Stone’s Throw Media, shows an unused roof at UTC Aerospace Systems CTG in Banbury being transformed into a people’s power station. Work with us We want to work with more local businesses to develop ‘people’s power stations’ for community benefit. 

First project for social developer Low Carbon Hub within new FiTs regime Oxford, 21 November 2016 ~ CTG, a Banbury-based site of UTC Aerospace Systems, is now host to the UK’s biggest community-owned rooftop solar array. At 712kW, the 2590 panel project will generate 593,304 kWh of clean electricity every year — enough to power 150…

We asked and you chose a colour for the Archimedes screws at Sandford! Last week we did a poll to ask what colour we should specify for the three Archimedes screws at Sandford Hydro. With 36% of the vote the winner was Water Blue RAL 5021! If you’d like to receive occasional updates just about progress…

We’ve won the world’s leading green energy award! Low Carbon Hub has won the UK Ashden Award for Sustainable Communities. Our clean energy social enterprise is a joint winner with Repowering London. The award ceremony this evening (9th June) will include winners from the UK, Africa, Indonesia, Mauritania, Asia and Central America — a truly global…